Dear Kai,
by ThatSelectedLunarCat
Summary: This is a letter from Cinder to Kai before the ball happened (he never got it). In my version, Cinder knows she is Selene before the ball.


Dear Kai,

It's me, Cinder. I will never see you again. I will miss you, but I must leave you behind. I'm trapped in my apartment with my abusive stepmother, Linh Adri. I won't go to the ball, I never would, not anymore. Even if I were to go with you, I have no means of escaping this wretched place, so it's no use trying. I'm trapped in my room, with nothing but two chips, my dead sister's ID chip, and my dead android's personality chip. Everyone I care about is gone Kai, and the more I care about you, the more impossible this becomes. The more I care about anyone, the more trapped I am.

You have no idea how much I want you, how much I need you, and how much I care about you. You are all I can see, but I know it could never be. I even see you now, I see your face in the clouds, in the moon, in the sky. You are everything, and you always will be. I love you prince Kaito, and I have since the second I met you. When you are here, your presence shines to me, it's as if the room is dark, and you are a torch. I know that the memory of you will guide me through the rest of my life, but I hope, for your sake, that you forget about me, let your mind kill all memories of me. I'm not who you think I am Kai. I need to disappear.

I have always needed to talk to someone, someone I love, but I have never been able too, not like this. Sure I would talk to my sister and android about their love for you, but never about my secrets. They knew who I was, as well as I did. Please, do not rip this up and burn it, as any other person would. My life is too messed up to be ignored.

I have scars, Kai. I know everyone does, but mine run deep, all the way to my heart. My injuries have never truly healed, and the scars always bleed. They are bleeding now. And they hurt. They hurt with all the agony of the world, they hurt as much as everyone in the galaxy combined, one thousand times worse. There is a puddle, a puddle of blood on my bedroom floor. It's growing. With each death I cause, The pain gets worse, and the puddles and stains get bigger. If you were the one causing every war, every problem, and every suffering in the galaxy, would your scars hurt as much as mine do?

The scars are on my ankle, wrist, back, neck, hand, everywhere you could imagine. And I'll tell you a secret. They're burn scars. I was trapped, even more, trapped than I am now. I was in the burning room, and sometimes I even get nightmares about her screaming. Only the screaming, though. I never knew what it meant until now.

My scars are ugly white lumps of skin encircling me, binding me to my past and my fate. They are ugly and terrible, and all along, I thought they were from a hover crash. If I try hard enough, now I can remember the fire, encircling me like the scars do, trapping me, like everything else does.

I lost eight years, I don't know where they went. I was dead, or unconscious, or maybe I did have a life that has been robbed from me. From the time I was three to the time I was eleven, I have no memory, except for a glimmer. I will tell it to you, but you must not go looking for the red haired girl. I woke up in a cell- like room. There was a suspension tank in the middle of it, filled with glowing green goo. There were two men and a woman looking at me. "Cinder," one man said, in a decisive voice. Everyone else nodded. I understood. My name was Cinder. They took me upstairs, and out a door. I had never seen sunlight before. It blinded me. And then I saw her, the red-haired girl. She was my age, running around a field of wheat. She did not see me, but I saw her, running. I remember the woman telling one man, "Scarlet" and then they hurried me into a hover. The memory is clearer after that, but I feel like this memory is the only tie I have to find out more about myself.

I feel like I have given too much away about me, about who I really am, without even telling you. I never wanted to hurt you, to endanger you, but I've been trapped for too long, and I'm hiding too much. I have to tell you to stop hiding. This is who I am.

I'm a cyborg, 64.35% not human. My gloves cover my deformities. I have a metal left hand, a metal right leg, implants, chips, and more metal in my spine, a lie detector, and a retina scanner. I am a metal girl, given the second chance, I don't want. I should have died, but I was operated on. I have been hiding, behind gloves, boots, and secrecy. I'm the best mechanic in new Beijing because I operate on myself so much. An android was my best friend because we are both not human. I was sent into cyborg drafting. I can still remember when they held me down and infected the plague into my arm, and I really thought I was going to die. Stop letting this happen. You are killing them, killing the innocent, the ones who were given a second chance.

I am Princess Selene. I am the girl you are looking for, the girl everyone is looking for. I am the ghost, the one everyone thinks died. That's because I should have died 13 years ago. Instead, I have been given this life, the life of a fugitive, of a disrespected robot, and of the person who can end all this. So now you understand. I can end all this. I can go to Luna and take back my country. But I can't I'm not strong, or brave, or someone people would listen to. I'm just the most wanted person in the world, but no one wants me, they want Selene. And I won't do it. I won't pretend to be the Selene of your dreams. I'm just the cyborg, the illegal lunar immigrant, and the girl who's trapped. Please, Kai, give up. Pretend I'm not Selene. Give up this endless search for nobody. Because that's who Selene is. Nobody. I am Selene, but I'm not. She was me 13 years ago. When I was known as Selene. When I lived on Luna. I love you Kai, and I love Luna, but I'm not the Selene everyone wants. Forget about her. She does not exist. You're looking for a ghost.

Cinder


End file.
